Upscale, Downscale, All Around the Town

I thought of a great title for this week’s post. Mentioned it to Judy, who liked it too, and then I said, “But I’ll probably forget it before I turn around.” We were getting out of the car to get to a sale – and sure enough it left my brain almost immediately. I had forgotten my notebook that morning so had nothing to write on even if I’d remembered. But Judy spotted a spiral notebook at the sale for a dime and bought it to keep in my car. Then she proceeded to make notes for me as we went along. Wow, my own private secretary in my convertible! I felt like a tycoon. A woman is rich indeed if she has a friend to garage with who will make notes as you drive!

We were definitely in tycoon territory at one of our first stops on Friday. Very, very posh neighborhood – a real live ‘private drive’ with a dozen very large homes built around a private park. The lady having the sale was downsizing to move to a condo. I hope she’s not claustrophobic, since she’s really going to feel the difference. Nice folks, enjoyed chatting with her and her daughter. It’s always interesting to see what people really consider valuable, based on how they price things. A decent but perfectly ordinary cooking pan was priced at $40.  Yet for a total of $1, I left with a little glass hummingbird ornament (that I haven’t managed to take a decent picture of!), two Danish cut paper Christmas scenes 

and a beautiful vintage table runner hand embroidered with daffodils.

I also left with a case of laundry room envy! We got to go inside the ginormous house for Judy to see a coffee table that was for sale (though not what she was looking for). As we left through the laundry room, I saw the built in sewing corner – handy, well lit, with plenty of storage for supplies and right where you need it to do repairs.

Next stop was pretty much the opposite – an old farmhouse with pretty much just junk scattered around the front yard. Very nice lady though, with a lovely cat. This is Meow-Meow, who has a lovely floofy tail.

  And for fifty cents I picked up a couple of boxes to hold all that thread I found last week.

We kept going to a couple more sales, commenting that we’d seen the upscale and downscale and now were back in the middle. The middle-scale made us laugh with this – a toy beaver with a different pricing structure depending on which Oregon football team you favor:

I picked up a DVD of one of my favorite movies

and some more cloth napkins (Zoe has already taken the corner off one of my lovely large white napkins from a couple of weeks ago – bad dog!). I thought this bird feeder was fun

  and I love the color of this insulated travel mug.

Just this week I put ‘wire basket’ on my list of items to watch for, to corral the computer plug thingies under my desk, and there it was. Brand new, one dollar.

Hoping that this book will give me some fresh inspiration for the flowering containers on my upper deck. They’ve been gorgeous this year, and I have to admit the main inspiration was seeing what was available for half-price at the local garden center on any given day!My last buy on Friday was…a house. Yes, I went out and bought a house.It’s a little smaller than my other house, being all of 2 1/2 inches highbut it came fully furnished (and populated with a spider web in the attic!)

and the pipes underneath seem to be in good condition.Best of all, it only cost a dime!

On Saturday I went out alone. It was supposed to be sunny and very hot (like in the 90s). I’m not sure where the mist and 67 degree temperature came from. Just went to a few sales, but found a better $5 desk chair than my last $5 desk chair

and a brand-new vacuvin thingie. What I really need are the corks, but for fifty cents I can hang onto the pump in case mine breaks.My feet are looking forward to becoming Happy Feet.

And I succumbed to the charms of this lovely vintage linen bag with beautiful embroidery. How could I resist for fifty cents?    At the same sale I scored a sprig of yet another coleus. 

That’s the 5th one in the past three weeks, all different. The ones I put in last week’s 25 cent planter are doing well.It was definitely a kitty-centric weekend. Besides Meow-Meow, we admired this fellow, who belonged to a neighbor of the people having the sale. Supposedly he is a highly-bred specimen who cost quite a pretty penny, but he wasn’t above shopping on driveways.When we first saw this happy guy, he was arching his back to better enjoy his grooming, then by the time I got the camera out he had swooned from delight.When I reached home and was showing my goodies to my husband, our Noll Baxter did his best to convince me I had forgotten to feed him (not true!) and he was STARVING!I didn’t fall for his lies, but he was gracious enough to help me photograph my finds anyway. What a guy.